It is unusual for a teacher to look into getting a music agent but Everton Barnes, 45, a year support manager looking after 13 and 14-year- olds at Lea Manor High in Luton, is threatening to do just that.
The tabloids revealed last week that he is the man who sang the lead vocals on Timmy Mallett’s number one single back in 1990, a cover of “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”.
The former Wacaday presenter’s star faded a long time ago, but he recently popped up on ITV’s hit show I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here! and had annoyed viewers and fellow campers alike by singing bits of “Itsy Bitsy”. So much so that he was voted out this week.
Mr Barnes was a budding RB singer before his career in education, which includes looking after the school choir and teaching English, and in 1989 he was roped in to sing lead vocals on “Itsy Bitsy”. The session lasted 90 minutes and the song stormed the charts the following summer.
As the police would say, the case was closed until recently, when he saw red - he is a West Ham fan, after all - and decided enough was enough. “It’s obvious from the show Mallett’s not got a very good voice,” Mr Barnes told The TES. “I just want the recognition that it was me who sang lead vocals on it.”
And if the song gets re-released? “I’d look at getting an agent. I wouldn’t let them do that to me twice.” Spoken like a true Hammer.
